Circle bets on millennials in its bid to make bitcoin mainstream

Circle Internet Financial, the bitcoin company that has raised $26 million in total funding, is betting that young consumers will be the key to mainstream adoption of bitcoin.

It unveiled its first product on Friday, which is free and will allow people to get instant access to bitcoin and send it to Circle users around the world. It is currently in an invitation-only phase.

“We are focused on young consumers [who] are digital natives,” said Jeremy Allaire, founder and chief executive of Circle, in an interview. These users already consume digital media and digital communications, making them likely candidates for adopting so-called digital money, he said.

“We think that a next logical category of products and services that they’re going to be attracted to are digital forms of money and the products and online services that support that,” Allaire said.

Digital money is the general term used by Circle to describe bitcoin.

In fact, Circle’s website actively minimizes references to bitcoin. The account page highlights the balance in dollars for U.S. consumers, with fainter text underneath showing the bitcoin balance. Users choose how much money to send in their local currency, such as dollars or euros.

“We don’t want users to think about the bitcoin price. It’s really oriented toward a unit of account that maps to your understanding of value,” he said.

But Circle doesn’t shield users from bitcoin’s price volatility, meaning that account balances will change if the value of bitcoin changes relative to the dollar.

And perhaps in a concession to appeal to older consumers, Circle is offering free phone support.

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